


burning days

by delayofgame



Category: Men's Hockey RPF
Genre: Alternate Universe - 1990s, Boston Bruins, Hitchhiking, M/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-04-08
Updated: 2019-04-08
Packaged: 2020-01-06 17:36:37
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,484
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18393146
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/delayofgame/pseuds/delayofgame
Summary: “So, like, hockey and moose and maple syrup?” Sean asks. He hesitates. “Or am I making assumptions?”He is, but Danton doesn’t mind. Hockey, at least, is something that he knows how to talk about.





	burning days

**Author's Note:**

> i put on _thunder road_ by bruce springsteen and this fic wrote itself. this is just a love letter to the west coast honestly and i'm sure that nobody asked for a 90's hitchhiking au but that's what you're getting! this takes place in 1993 specifically but if there are some inconsistencies please just ignore them lol. every background character is exactly who you think they are
> 
> i'm anticipating 3 chapters but it might become 4
> 
> if you leave a comment it'll make my day!!

The afternoon sun is hot and unforgiving, reflecting off of the specks of mica and ground-up glass in the dirt beneath Danton’s sneakers. He takes a step away from the road as a logging truck races by and sticks his thumb back up after it passes, not before taking a moment to brush the dust out of his hair. He figures he’s about seven hours north of San Francisco. His last ride, a couple with three enormous dogs that took quite a liking to Danton, had dropped him off right outside Crescent City and assured him that he’d find plenty of people willing to pick up hitchhikers there. 

Danton can see the ocean to his right. The land is flat and dotted with restaurants and motels, about half of which are out of business. The vegetation consists mostly of low bushes and grass turning brown in the dry heat. There are occasional clusters of spruce and cedar trees, but most of them are too far from the road to provide any shade.

Danton hears tires against pavement behind him, so he takes a step toward the road and raises his thumb up higher. He isn’t too optimistic, considering that for the past hour or so he’s been thoroughly ignored, but his backpack is heavy and the sun is hot on the top of his head and he’s about ready to take a break from walking.

To his surprise, the car slows and comes to a stop about twenty feet in front of him. It’s old with a considerable layer of rust along the bottom, and one of the back windows has been replaced with a piece of cardboard. There’s a sticker that says _RECYCLE!_ in bold green font on the rear bumper. 

Danton jogs up to the car and leans down to look through the passenger window. The driver is a younger guy, probably in his mid-twenties, with dirty blond hair and a few days’ worth of stubble. His grey t-shirt is frayed around the collar and says _MIAMI_ in faded print across his chest. He's… _good-looking_ , to say the least, and he gives Danton an easy smile. 

“Need a ride?”

Getting rides is, all things considered, easier than Danton had anticipated. The first time he’d hitchhiked successfully was a few months earlier, in the cab of a tractor trailer whose owner he’d met at a Chevron outside of Langley. He only got as far as Kelowna before heading back; it was a sort of trial run. Now he’s really in the thick of it, hundreds of miles from home with only a few hundred dollars to his name and no couches to crash on. 

Danton nods and pulls the door open. “Yeah. Thanks, man.”

The guy gives Danton a quick once-over and seems content with what he sees. “No problem.”

It’s always a risk, getting into a stranger’s car. Danton is well aware. However, he considers himself a pretty good judge of character, and the guy certainly doesn’t seem like a serial killer. 

Danton dumps his backpack into the back and sits down in the passenger seat. He offers a handshake. “My name’s Danton.”

The guy takes his hand and shakes it vigorously. “I’m Sean. Where are you headed?”

Sean’s voice is low and husky. Danton stares at him just long enough to notice that his eyes are blue, then quickly switches his gaze back to the road ahead of them.

“Just south, I guess,” Danton says with a shrug. “However far you wanna take me.”

“So you’re a drifter, then?” Sean asks as he shifts the car into drive and continues along the road. It stalls for a moment when he engages the clutch.

By definition, Danton supposes that he is. He doesn’t really have a destination. He doesn’t feel directionless, he knows what he wants to get out of this, but he doesn’t know _how_. 

“I guess so,” Danton says, because he doesn’t feel like explaining. “What about you?”

“I’m heading for San Francisco,” Sean replies. “Don’t know exactly what I’m gonna do there, but an old friend is letting me stay in his apartment in the city for a few weeks.”

“That’s cool,” Danton says. He fidgets with the rubber bracelet around his wrist. This is a point where things can get awkward, when the conversation lulls after the formalities are out of the way. Danton has never been the best at small talk. That doesn’t cause problems most of the time, but long car rides are a different story entirely. Mundane and empty conversation is unbearable, and total silence can be even worse. 

“So,” Sean says suddenly. “Music?”

Danton looks up. “Uh, whatever you want to listen to.”

Sean drives with his knee as he digs around the center console until he pulls out a CD. Danton does the sign of the cross, only half-joking, and it gets a laugh out of Sean. To his credit, the car only swerves a little bit. 

“Are you a CCR fan?” Sean asks, still looking down at the CD case.

Danton frowns. “Who’s that?”

Sean gives him an astonished look. “ _Creedence Clearwater Revival_? John Fogerty? The iconic band that was just inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame?”

Danton just shakes his head. 

Sean looks almost offended. “ _Well_ , consider this your introduction, then.”

He starts up the disc, proclaiming that the first song is the _best one_ , and Danton sits back and enjoys the riff of the guitar and bluesy vocals. Sean taps on the steering wheel and starts to sing along under his breath.

Danton likes this, he thinks. It usually takes him a while to truly relax when he's riding with someone, but Sean is humming away and bobbing his head up and down and Danton finds something about his gaiety quite comforting. He lets himself relax against the worn upholstery of the seat. 

The trees blur together as the car whips by. John Fogerty croons about _a bad moon on the rise_. 

\--

They reach Eureka just as the sun begins to sink below the horizon. 

“Want to get dinner?” Sean suggests as they enter the city. “I’ll pay.”

“Oh, you don’t have to-” Danton protests, but Sean brushes him off. He pulls the car into the parking lot of a small restaurant with a neon sign on the roof. A few of the letters have burned out, making the sign read _BURG R SHA K_. 

Thirty minutes later, they’re sitting at a booth in the back of the restaurant, full of burgers and soda, completely absorbed in conversation. They pick away at the enormous basket of french fries on the tray between them. 

“I moved out when I was nineteen,” Sean explains. “I ended up crashing on couches for a few months, but then I decided to ditch Ohio altogether and took a big road trip. All in that junker out there.”

He points to his car, visible through the window beside their booth. “I went to Chicago first, then Minneapolis. South Dakota, Montana, Idaho, Washington, Oregon. I was gonna try to find a job up there, but then I remembered that a childhood friend had moved out here and I found him in a phone book that I _might_ have stolen from someone’s front lawn. Called him up from a payphone in Eugene, and things just… worked out.”

Sean tells it like he’s reading it from a book; there’s something whimsical about the way he describes the events. As if it was an adventure that he chose to go through with. Danton thinks of his own situation, the neck pain from nights sleeping in cars and the skipped meals to save as much money as he could, and feels a pang of envy. 

“So I guess I’m not really looking for anything in San Francisco,” Sean continues. “Just seeing what happens.”

Danton nods and tries to look thoughtful. “Just enjoy the ride.”

Sean grins. “Exactly. So, what’s your story?”

Danton hesitates before answering. He doesn’t particularly like talking about himself, even surface-level stuff. It isn’t entirely that he’s distrusting, though that’s certainly part of it, but it’s also because he doesn’t find much about himself very interesting.

“I’m Canadian,” he offers.

“So, like, hockey and moose and maple syrup?” Sean asks. He hesitates. “Or am I making assumptions?”

He is, but Danton doesn’t mind. Hockey, at least, is something that he knows how to talk about.

“Hockey was _everything_ when I was growing up,” Danton says. “That’s what all the kids in the neighborhood did, pond hockey in the winters and ball hockey in the summers. As we got older, we’d get our parents to drive us back and forth from Vancouver for all the tournaments and stuff. The longer you did it, the deeper it got, and eventually it was all about getting scouted and being ranked and going pro.”

“Did you want to?” Sean asks. “Did you think you would?”

Danton surprises himself with how easily he responds. “Yeah, I did. I guess we all did, because our parents and our coaches were telling us how great we were all the time. But some of us did have a real chance of it.”

“ _You_ did,” Sean says, confidently, as if he can tell somehow.

Danton takes a long sip of his soda. “Maybe before I fucked up my knee, yeah.”

“Oh.” Sean frowns. His gaze is soft and apologetic. “I’m sorry.”

They’re quiet after that. After the french fries are finished and the restaurant employees give them a few glares for taking up a table for so long, they finally head back out to the car. It’s pitch black outside by then, the parking lot outside lit softly by a lone streetlight contrasting the harsh, fluorescent lighting inside the restaurant. 

“Thank you,” Danton says as Sean pulls the car back out onto Route 101.

Sean quirks an eyebrow. “For what?”

“Paying,” Danton replies. “For the food.”

“Oh.” Sean looks back out at the road. “Don’t worry about it.”

Danton always worries, though, about money. He doesn’t know how anyone treats it so casually. 

Maybe Sean is just a generous guy.

It occurs to Danton that he probably shouldn’t be so trusting. Sean seems so genuine, though. Danton doesn’t know anyone his age who has every single Bruce Springsteen CD in the center console of their cars organized alphabetically. He isn't sure he's ever met someone so easily empathetic and affable, especially with a complete stranger. Sean isn't apologetic about any of it. 

Danton realizes that he’s staring, and immediately turns away to watch the trees whipping by out the passenger window. A sign reflected in the glow of the headlights proclaims that they are entering Fortuna. _Dancing in the Moonlight_ by King Harvest (“a _masterpiece_ ,” Sean calls it) plays softly over the car speakers. 

Danton closes his eyes and leans his forehead against the window. 

\-- 

Danton must drift off, because the next time he opens his eyes the car is on a narrow road, winding through trees and hills barely visible in the dim headlights. Danton makes out a sign as they speed by: _GARBERVILLE, ELEV. 535 FT_. 

“Hey, sleepyhead,” Sean says as Danton yawns.

Danton blushes at the affectionate term, keeping his gaze directed out the window. 

“I assume you don’t want to arrive in the city in the middle of the night,” Sean says. “We’re probably four hours out depending on the route we take.”

Danton just nods sleepily, not entirely sure what Sean is implying. 

“I just saw a sign for a motel up ahead,” Sean continues.

_Oh._

Danton sits up a bit straighter in his seat, trying to wake himself up fully. “Yeah. Yeah, sure, we can, uh… stop for the night.”

He doesn’t know why he’s suddenly so nervous. He’s stayed the night with people giving him rides before, though he’s more used to rolling out his sleeping bag in the cab of a trailer truck and using his backpack as a pillow than actually getting a room. Also, his companions usually aren’t so… young. 

And attractive.

They reach the _Mountainview Inn_ a few minutes later. It’s a two-story, pastel blue building with white doors and a sparsely-filled parking lot. The neon _vacancy_ sign is lit up red. Sean pulls into a parking spot, and the two of them head to the door marked _OFFICE_.

The person behind the desk is chewing gum and flipping through a magazine. His name tag says _Matt_ and has a smiley face sticker on it, contrasting the bored expression he's sporting. 

“Uh, hi,” Sean says as he approaches the desk. “We’d like two rooms. Just for tonight.”

Matt lifts his gaze from his magazine. “Sure. Just sign the guest book.”

He pushes a large, leather-bound book across the desk. As Sean signs himself in, Danton lets his eyes wander around the office. There’s a bookshelf full of California travel guides on the back wall. Beside the door is a tiered rack of brochures, and there’s an ATM on the other side. 

He turns around when Sean taps him on the shoulder and hands him the pen. As he signs his name below Sean’s, he notices that the pen is printed with Boston Bruins logos. While he certainly isn’t a Bruins fan by any means, he still perks up at the sight of NHL merchandise. 

He gives the pen back. “Bruins, eh?”

Matt shrugs. “I’m from Boston.”

He doesn’t elaborate. Not the chatty type, apparently.

Matt closes the guest book and moves it to the side of the desk. “That’ll be forty each.”

Danton unzips his backpack and takes a wad of bills from the inner pocket. Considering the free dinner, he can stand to part with that much. 

Matt blows an enormous gum bubble and pops it with his teeth. “I'll get you your keys.”

Sean takes the key for room one, and Danton gets room five. They thank Matt for his help and go back outside, where Danton grabs his backpack from the backseat of the car.

“I’ll see you in the morning, then,” Sean says as they stand in front of the row of rooms on the second floor.

“Yeah,” Danton replies. “See you.”

He watches Sean disappear into his room. He stays outside for a few moments longer, drinking in the cool night air, quiet except for the sound of a television in the next room over. The moon is half-hidden by a cluster of pines behind the building. A car drives slowly by on the main road, its headlights casting long, eerie shadows. 

Danton sighs and curls his fingers tighter around his room key. He looks down at Sean’s car in the lot. 

Coincidence is a funny thing. He wonders, if his and Sean’s lives didn’t synchronize for just that one brief moment on the road outside Crescent City earlier that day, what he would be doing right now.


End file.
